Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/650

632 in the first class we read of tatooed Britons in their war chariots, Thracians with their peculiar bucklers and scimi- tars, Moors from the villages round Atlas, and negroes from central Africa, exhibited in the Colosseum. Down to the time of the empire only greater malefactors, such as brigands and incendiaries, were condemned to the arena; but by Caligula, Claudius, and Nero this punishment was extended to minor offences, such as fraud and peculation, in order to supply the growing demand for victims. For the ﬁrst century of the empire it was lawful for masters to sell their slaves as gladiators, but this was forbidden by Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius. Besides these three regular classes, the ranks were recruited by a considerable number of freedmen and Roman citizens who had squandered their estates, and voluntarily took the auctoramentum gladiatorz'um, by which for a stated time they bound themselves to the (waste. Even men of birth and fortune not seldom entered the lists, either for the pure love of fighting, or to gratifythe whim of some dissolute emperor; and one emperor, Commodus, actually appeared in person in the arena. Gladiators were trained in schools (ludi) owned either by the state or by private citizens ; and though the trade of a lanista was considered disgraceful, to own gladiators and let them out for hire was reckoned a legitimate branch of commerce. Thus Cicero, in his letters to Atticus, congratu- lates his friend on the good bargain he had made in pul‘-« chasing a band, and urges that he might easily recoup him- self by consenting to let them out twice. Men recruited mainly from slaves and criminals, whose lives hung on a thread, must have been more dangerous characters than modern galley slaves or convicts; and, though highly fed and carefully tended, they were of necessity subject to an iron discipline. In the school of gladiators discovered at l’ompeii, of the sixty—three skeletons buried in the cells many were in irons. But hard as was the gladiator’s lot, —so hard that special precautions had to be taken to prevent suicide,——it had its consolations. A successful gladiator en- joyed far greater fame than any modern prize-ﬁghter or athlete. He was presented with broad pieces, chains, and jewelled helmets, such as may be seen in the museum at Naples; poets like Martial sang his prowess; his portrait ‘was multiplied on vases, lamps, and gems; and high—born ladies contended for his favours. Mixed, too, with the lowest dregs of the city, there must have been many noble bar- barians condemned to the vile trade by the hard fate of war. There are few ﬁner characters in Roman history than the Thracian Spartacus, who, escaping with seventy of his com- rades from the school of Lentnlus at Capua, for three years deﬁed the legions of Home; and after Antony’s defeat at Actium, the only part of his army that remained faithful to his cause were the gladiators whom he had enrolled at Cyzicus to grace his anticipated victory. There were various classes of gladiators, distinguished by their arms or modes of fighting. The Samnitcs fought with the national weapons—a large oblong shield, at vizard, a plumed helmet, and a short sword. The Thraces had a small round buckler and a dagger carved like a scythe; they were generally pitted against the Mirmillones, so called from the ﬁsh (ﬂopping) which served as the crest of their helmet. In like manner the tetiarius was matched with the Secutor: the former had nothing on but a short tunic or apron, and sought to entangle his pursuer, who was fully armed, with the cast-net (jurulmn) that he carried in his right hand ; and if successful, he despatched him with the trident (lrirlens, fusrina) that he carried in his left. We may also mention the Andabatae, who wore helmets with closed vizors; the Dimachzcri of the later empire; the Essed-irii, who fought from chariots like the ancient Britons; the Hoplomachi, armed like a Greek hoplite; and the Laqueatores, who tried to lasso their antagonists.

1em 1em 1em 1em  GLADIOLUS, a genus of monocotyledonous or endogen- ous plants, belonging to the natural order Iridaccce, and representative of the tribe Gladz'olca', a group of bulbous plants in which the perianth is irregular, and the stamens unilateral and arched, with the ﬁlaments free. It belongs to a subdivision of the Gladiolea’, in which the segments of the limb of the perianth are very unequal, and is specially distinguished by having the perianth tube curved, funnel-